FEAST.

The jury finding the book to the best of their skill and knowledge;) of no other tendency, but to encourage such as were virtuous to take FEAT. upon them the government of the city of London, with good husbandry, and sober methods, as might neither dishonour God by excess in feastings, nor yet ruin their own families. State Trials. Charles II. Anno 1680! Trial of Francis Smith. They came up to worship. To worship! what is that? Did they come to love God, to fear him, to trust on him, or the like? no surely, they did all this at home; at least they were bound to do it in all places, and at all times as well as at Hierusalem upon the feast-day, Bishop Beveridge. Sermon 5.

Whose hospitable gate,

Unbarr'd to all, invites a numerous train

Of daily guests; whose board, with plenty crown'd, Revives the feast-rites old.d's big code may not

2 16002 Is to s♬ Philips, Cider, book i.

The league of mightiest nations, in those hours
When Venice was an envy, might abate,
But did not quench, her spirit-in, her fate
All were enwrapp'd; the feasted monarchs knew
And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate,
Although they humbled.

20

Byron.Works, vol. iv. p. 364. Poems, Ode 3.

Songs in strains of wisdom drest, Great Saturnius to record,

And by each rejoicing guest

ཀཱ་, ;, ;

FEAT, v.

Sung at Hiero's feastful board.

West. Odes of Pindar. The first Olympic Ode.

Fr. faict; Lat. factum, any thing FEAT, N. done, a deed. Upon the Fr. partiFEAT, adj. ciple faict, done, made, framed, FEATLY, formed or fashioned, Shakspeare FE'ATOUS, seems to have founded his verb to FE'ATOUSLY, feat, to form or fashion. The same FEAT-WORKER.J adjective, done, performed, achieved, finished, accomplished, (whence also the Fr. faictis ; neat, feat, comely, well made,) has also furnished us with the adjective feat; q. d. bien, fait, bene factus; well done or made, fit.

For Jamys the gentel. suggeth in hus bokes
That felth without fet. ys febelere pan nouht
And ded as a dore nayle.

Y

Piers Plouhman. Vision, p. 22.

Not only this Grisildis thurgh hire wit
Coude all the fete of wifly homliness,
But eke whan that the cas required it,
The comune profit coude she redresse.

Chaucer. The Clerkes Tale, v. 8305.

Ful fetis damosels two
Right yong, and full of semelyhede
In kirtels, and none other wede

And faire tressed euery tresse
Had mirth doen for his noblesse.

Id. The Romant of the Rose, fol. 120.

She was not wont to great trauaill,

For whan she kempt was feteously
And well araied and richely
Than had she doen all her iourne.

Id.

Ib. fol. 119.

Id. Ib. fol. 126.

So featly tripp'd the lightfoot ladies round,
The knights so nimbly o'er the greensward bound,
That scarce they bent the flowers, or touch'd the ground.
Pope. Poems January and May.

Not victories won by Marlbro's sword,

Nor titles which these feats record,
Such glories o'er the dead diffuse

As can the labours of the Muse.

Jenyns. Horace, book iv. Ode 8. Imitated. Meantime some rude Arion's restless hand Wakes the brisk harmony that sailors love; A circle there of merry listeners stand,' Or to some well-known measure featly move Thoughtless, as if on shore they still were free to rove. Byron. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, can. 2. st. 21. FEATHER, v. FEATHER, N. FEATHERED,

FE'ATHERLESS, FE'ATHERLY, FEATHERY, FEATHER-BED,

A. S. fether; D. veder ; Ger. feder; Sw. fjaeder. Luke, xvi. 6, Nim thine fethere; take thy caution. Accipe cautionem tuam. On which Somner remarks, that fethere does not signify cautio, but calamus. In the Gothic version it is bokos, FEATHER-DRIVER, thy book. The word is derived from the Gr. #Teр-òv, (a wing, from πτέξειν, for πέτεειν, volare, to fly.) And thus, a feather is

FEATHER-DEALER,

FEATHER-FOOTED,

FEATHER-MAKER,

FEATHER-MAN.

that which fleeth. To feather,

To clothe in feathers, with plumage; to dress or fit with feathers; to trim, to gather or collect them; and thus, metaphorically, to feather the nest; to gather or collect the means of warmth and comfort.

H

But they were shauen well and dight
Nocked and fethered aright.

Chaucer. The Romant of the Rose, fol. 120.

And to the crowe he stert, and that anon

And pulled his white feathers everich on,
And made him blak, and raft him all his song
And eke his speche.

Id. The Manciples Tale, v. 17253. Lordes, sayd this frere, there was ones a fowle appered in this worlde without ouy fethers; and when al other fowles knew yt he was borne, they came to se hym, bicause he was so fayre and plesaunt to beholde. Lord Berners. Froissart. Cronycle, vol. ii. ch. xlii. Then he cried them mercy, and sayd, that he wolde amende himselfe, and noo more be prowde; and so then agayne these gentyll byrdes had pyte on hym and fethered bym agayne.

Id. Fo.

1

What pity it is that those wise masters were not of the counsel of the Almighty, when he was pleased to give a being to his creature; they would surely haue devised to make a winged elephant, and a corpulent gnat: a feather'd man, and a speaking beast.

Hall. Works, vol. iii. fol. 434. Equal Distribution. Soliloquy 21.

This very word of patterning or imitating, excludes Episcopacy from the solid and grave ethical law, and betrays it to be a mere child of ceremony, or likelier some misbegotten thing, that having pluckt the gay feathers of her obsolete bravery, to hide her own deformed barrenness, now vaunts and glories in her stolen plumes.

Milton. The Reason of Church Government, book i, ch. iii.
And Wisdom's self

Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude;

Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort

Were all-to ruffled, and sometimes impair'd.

Id. Comus, 1, 378.

PvP. Of feather-makers i' the fryers, that are o' your faction of faith? Are not they with their perrukes, and their puffes, their fannes, and their huffes, as much pages of pride, and waiters vpon vanity.

Ben Jonson. Bartholomew Fayre, act v. sc. 5.
And you, sweet feather-man, whose ware though light
O'erweighs your conscience, what serves your trade
But to plume Folly, to give Pride her wings
To deck Vain-glory?

Randolph. The Muse's Looking-glass, act i. sc. 2. [The Sarmati and Quadi] armed with habergeons made of shaved and smoothed hornes, which feather-wise are wrought close into linnen jackes.

Holland, Ammianus, fol. 94. Constantius and Julianus.

Her feather'd subjects all adore their queen,
And while she makes her progress through the east,
From every grove her numerous train's increas'd:
Each Poet of the air her glory sings,

FEATURE.

And round him the pleas'd audience clap their wings.
Dryden. To the Duchess of York.

I took you into my house, placed you next myself, and made you governante of my whole family. You have forgot this, have you, now you have feathered your nest? Congreve. The Way of the World, act v. i BELIN. Ay, on my conscience, fat as a barndoor fowl; but so bedeck'd, you would have taken them for Friesland hens, with their feathers growing the wrong way. Id. The Old Batchelor, act iv. Thither the household feathery people crowd,

The crested cock, with all his female train,
Pensive, and dripping.

Thomson. Winter.

Our resolutions are light and feathery, soon scattered by a storm of fear; it is as dangerous to trust in a heart of flesh, as in an arm of flesh. Bates. Spiritual Reflections Unfolded, ch. xii.

And yet at the first encounter of a strong temptation, our resolutions may cool and faint, and our vows of obedience may vanish as the "morning dew before the heat of the sun;" there is such a levity and featheriness in our minds, such a mutability and inconstancy in our hearts. Id. The Sure Trial of Uprightness.

The friendly rug preserv'd the ground,
And headlong knight, from bruise or wound:
Like feather-bed betwixt a wall,
And heavy brunt of cannon ball.

Butler. Hudibras, parti. can. 2.

And not only air, but Diemerbroeck proves that the vesiculæ admit dust also from two asthmatick persons he opened, one a stoneThe other was a feather-driver, who had these bladders filled with the fine dust or down of feathers.

cutter's man.

Derham. Physico-Theology, book iv. ch. vii. note. From Eurus, foe to kitchen ground, Fenc'd by a slope with bushes crown'd, Fit dwelling for the feather'd throng,

Who pay their quit rents with a song.

Green. The Spleen.

The volunteers have cloaths as fine, feathers as high, music of as martial a character, decorations of all sorts as captivating and imposing, as those of the regular troops.

Windham. Speeches. Additional Force Bill, June 5, 1804.
At a word,

His feathery subjects in obedience flock
Around his feeding hand, who in return
Yield a delicious tribute to the board,
And o'er his couch their downy plumage spread.`
Dodsley. Agriculture, can. 1.

The feather-footed hours that fly
Say, "human life thus passes by."

Thompson. Winter.

FEATURE, n. Minshew says, feature or makFEATURED, adj. ing. Fr. faicture; It. fattura; FEATURELESS. Sp. hechura; Lat. factura, from facere, to make, form or fashion. Applied to

The form or fashion, the make, sc. of the body; of the face or countenance: metaphorically, of any subject of thought or speech.

Therto he was the semlieste man,

That is or was, sithen the world began;
What necdeth it his feture to descrive?

Chaucer. The Manciples Tale, v. 17070.

Of all her feiters he shall take bede,

His eyen with all her limmes fede.

Id. The Romant of the Rose, fol. 129.

Hakluyt. Voyage, &c. vol. iii. fol. 427. Farnando Alarchon.

'Twas a child, that so did thrive

In grace and feature,

As heaven and nature seem'd to strive
Which own'd the creature.

Ben Jonson, Epigramme 120. A man of goodly presence and well favoured, and comely shape and feature of bodie, his lims streight and proportionably compact.

Holland. Ammianus, fol. 27. Gallus and Constantius.
Their clay well featur'd, their well temper'd mould
Ambitious mortals make their chief pretence

To be the objects of delighted sense.

Beaumont. Of the Miserable State of Man.
Let those whom nature hath not made for stone, T
Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish.
Shakspeare. Sonnet 11.

Words are but pictures, true or false design'd,
To draw the lines and features of the mind.

Butler. Satire upon Human Learning, part ii.
There Herbert sate-the love of human kind,
Pure light of truth, and temperance of mind,
In the free eye, the featur'd soul display'd,
Honour's strong beam, and mercy's melting shade.

Langhorne. The Country Justice, part i.
Her tow'ring domes let Richmond boast alone;
The sculptur'd statue and the breathing stone:
Alone distinguish'd on the plains of Stowe,
From Jones's hand the featur'd marble glow.

Id. Studley Park.

Yet oft with pain and fear have I beheld
A little, wayward, giddy levity
Show its capricious features in the midst
Of thy endearments, while the languid sigh,
And eye dissatisfy'd, would tell the wish
For courtly grandeur.

Mickle. The Siege of Marseilles, act i. sc. 1.
Cold as the marble where his length was laid,
Pale as the beam that o'er his features play'd,
Was Lara stretch'd; his half-drawn sabre near,
Dropp'd it should seem in more than nature's fear.
Byron. Lura, can. 1. st. 13.

FEBRI FICK, FEBRIFUGAL,

FE'BRILE.

Id. Ib.

ARY.

FECIAL

FEBRUARY, Fr. feurier; It. febraio, febraro; FEBRU FEBRUATION.JSp. febrero; Lat. februarius; so called, because then the people (februaretur, hoc est, expurgaretur) were purified by sacrifices for the manes of the dead, Februa formed a fervendo, whence also febris, fever, q. v. See Vossius.

Who being upon sending for corne, and having a presage or perceivance of the businesse to bee performed (as hee had an inckling given him even by continuall dreames) would neither be seene nor come abroad for two daies, avoiding the bissext or odd daye of the leap yeare in the moneth of Februarie.

Holland. Ammianus, fol. 284. Valentinianus. Some fantastick rites and februations to chase away mormoes and spectres. Spenser. On Prodigies, p. 227. The month FEBRUARY was added to the Roman Calendar by Numa, but not in the position which it now holds; it preceded January and closed the year. The Decemviri transferred it to the place wherein it has since stood. Ovid, #Fasti, ii. 47. Eight and twenty days were assigned to it by Numa, in order that the sum of the year might be an uneven number, according to a Pythagorean fancy. Macrobius, Sat. i. 13.

FE'CES, Fr. feces, feculent; Lat. fer, fecis, FE'CULENCE, is the excrement of any thing: so FE'CULENCY, called a faciendo; according to PeFE'CULENT. rottus, but Vossius is not decisive. And thus feculence is

་་

Filth or foulness, impurity, the dregs.
Blessed be heaven,

I sent you of his feces there calcined.
Ben Jonson.

The Alchemist, act ii. sc. 3. Heren may be perceived slender perforations, at which may be expressed a black and fæculent matter.

Sir Thomas Brown. Vulgar Errors, book iii. ch. xvii. And by the favour of an easie simile we may affirm them [Philosophical souls] to be to the body as the light of a candle to the gross and fæculent snuff; which, as it is not pent up in it, so neither doth it partake of its stench and impurity.

Glanvil. The Vanity of Dogmatizing, ch. xxiv. Besides, none of these animal juices, except the liquor of the intestines, are mixed with the faces of an animal, which in a sound Arbuthnot. On Aliments. state are hard. Besides the vinous liquor, the fermented juice of the grapes is partly turned into liquid drops or lees, and partly into that crust or dry feculency, that is commonly called tartar.

Boyle. Works, vol. i. p. 580. The Sceptical Chymist, part vi. That a subtile terrestrious substance may lurk undiscerned, even in limpid liquors. may appear in wine, which rejects and fastens to the sides of the containing vessel a tartar, abounding in terrestrious feculency. Id. Ib. vol. ii. p. 78. The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, part ii. Essay 2.

He [Joseph] preserved his sincere and constant innocence, as the sun its undefiled lustre, in the midst of all the feculent exhalations that ascend from the earth.

Bates. The Great Duty of Resignation. That the inhabitants of the air, (birds and insects,) need the air as well as man, and other animals, is manifest from their speedy dying in too feculent or too much rarefied air.

Derham. Physico-Theology, book i. ch. i. (note 4.)
- Thither [to cities] flow

As to a common and most noisome sewer,
The dregs and feculence of every land.

Cowper. The Task, book i.

It was long before the spirit of true piety and true wisdom, involved in the principles of the Reformation, could be depurated from the dregs and feculence of the contention with which it was carried Burke. Speech at Bristol. through.

FECIAL, Lat. fecialis or fetialis; plainly so called, says Varro, a fatu, that is, fando: because they were the orators or spokesmen employed on certain great public occasions.

When the greater number of them there present accord thereunto, then by generall consent they were wont to proclaime war in this H 2

But they were shauen well and dight

Nocked and fethered aright.

Chaucer. The Romant of the Rose, fol. 120.

And to the crowe he stert, and that anon
And pulled his white feathers everich on,
And made him blaky and raft him all his song
And eke his speche.

Id. The Manciples Tale, v. 17253. Lordes, sayd this frere, there was ones a fowle appered in this worlde without ouy fethers; and when at other fowles knew yt he was borne, they came to se hym, bicause he was so fayre and plesaunt to beholde. Lord Berners. Froissart. Cronycle, vol. ii. ch. xlii. Then he cried them mercy, and sayd, that he wolde amende himselfe, and noo more be prowde; and so then agayne these gentyll byrdes had pyte on hym and fethered hym agayne."

"

Id ba

What pity it is that those wise masters were not of the counsel of the Almighty, when he was pleased to give a being to his creature; they would surely haue devised to make a winged elephant, and a corpulent gnat: a feather'd man, and a speaking beast. Hall. Works, vol. iii. fol. 434. Equal Distribution. Soliloquy 21. This very word of patterning or imitating, excludes Episcopacy from the solid and grave ethical law, and betrays it to be a mere child of ceremony, or likelier some misbegotten thing, that having pluckt the gay feathers of her obsolete bravery, to hide her own deformed barrenness, now vaunts and glories in her stolen plumes.

Milton. The Reason of Church Government, book i. ch. iii.
And Wisdom's self

Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude;

Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort

Were all-to ruffled, and sometimes impair'd.

Thus works the hand of nature in the feathery plantation about
birds.
Sir Thomas Brown. Cyrus Garden, ch. iii.
Which seems to be some feathery particle of snow.

Id. Vulgar Errors, book ii. ch. i.
Goes jogging on, and in his mind naught hath,
But how the primrose finely strews the path,
Or sweetest violets lay down their heads

At some tree's root on mossie feather-beds.

Browne. Britannia's Pastorals, book i. song 5.

Is't not enough that I must go
Into another clime,

Where feather-footed time
May turn my hopes into despair,
My youthful down to bristled hair,
But that you add this torment too?

So when the new-born Phenix first is seen,
Her feather'd subjects all adore their queen,
And while she makes her progress through the east,
From every grove her numerous train's increas'd:
Each Poet of the air her glory sings,

And round him the pleas'd audience clap their wings.
Dryden. To the Duchess of York.

I took you into my house, placed you next myself, and made you governante of my whole family. You have forgot this, have you, now you have feathered your nest? Congreve. The Way of the World, act v. BELIN. Ay, on my conscience, fat as a barndoor fowl; but so bedeck'd, you would have taken them for Friesland hens, with their feathers growing the wrong way. Id. The Old Batchelor, act iv. Thither the household feathery people crowd,

The crested cock, with all his female train,
Pensive, and dripping.

Thomson. Winter.

Our resolutions are light and feathery, soon scattered by a storm of fear; it is as dangerous to trust in a heart of flesh, as in an arm of flesh. Bates Spiritual Reflections Unfolded, ch. xii.

And yet at the first encounter of a strong temptation, our resolutions may cool and faint, and our vows of obedience may vanish as the "morning dew before the heat of the sun;" there is such a levity and featheriness in our minds, such a mutability and inconstancy in our hearts. Id. The Sure Trial of Uprightness.

The friendly rug preserv'd the ground,
And headlong knight, from bruise or wound:
Like feather-bed betwixt a wall,
And heavy brunt of cannon ball.

Butler. Hudibras, parti. can. 2. And not only air, but Diemerbroeck proves that the vesicula admit dust also from two asthmatick persons he opened, one a stonecutter's man. The other was a feather-driver, who had these bladders filled with the fine dust or down of feathers.

Derham. Physico-Theology, book iv. ch. vii. note.
From Eurus, foe to kitchen ground,
Fenc'd by a slope with bushes crown'd,
Fit dwelling for the feather'd throng,
Who pay their quit rents with a song.